BART’s new fare evasion problem: One whole county exempt from crackdown

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BART has a problem with its crackdown on fare evaders, one that even many board members didn’t know existed: The transit agency’s new team of blue-vested enforcers can’t ticket cheats at any of six stations in San Mateo County.

Riders in Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Millbrae and at San Francisco International Airport will not encounter the sting operations that regularly occur at other stations, in which civilian inspectors stand atop stairwells or in front of elevators, checking everyone who comes by and issuing $75 citations.

BART police officers can still cite fare evaders under the state penal code. However, it turns out the agency cannot impose any of its internal ordinances in San Mateo County or at the planned Silicon Valley extension in San Jose, which would be operated by BART but owned by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

San Mateo County opted out of the system back in 1961 — years before trains began rattling across the region — and only recently did the transit agency begin its expansion into Santa Clara.

That throws a wrench into the BART fare enforcement operation that was passed last October and launched in March, and it’s also prevented the agency from laying down other rules. The law that Gov. Jerry Brown signed on Sunday to kick-start housing development in BART parking lots will not apply south of San Francisco.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

A man jumps the turnstile at the BART station at Civic Center despite gates that were installed (seen at left and right) to deter fare evasion in San Francisco.

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The district line has existed for decades. But it became a point of contention this week when BART’s board voted to expand the fare enforcement program amid concerns that it’s not effective and not being applied equally. A report released Thursday showed that African Americans receive nearly half the citations, even though they represent about 12 percent of BART’s ridership.

Until last week, when agency staff brought the issue up in a presentation to the board and after they were contacted by The Chronicle, at least four directors were unaware of the problem. Those directors said they are alarmed that a whole subset of passengers may never have to walk through the checkpoints.

“It shouldn’t be that you don’t have to pay your fair share in one set of stations, but you have to pay everywhere else,” said Board Director Nick Josefowitz, who represents San Francisco.

He vowed to bring the system’s proof-of-payment ordinance to San Mateo County, even if it requires a change in state law.

Yet it’s unclear if Josefowitz and other board members can rally the political will to change the BART Act, a 1965 law that created the district, drawing its perimeter around three counties: San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa.

Residents outside those areas don’t contribute property taxes to BART or elect representatives to the transit system’s board. They only pay a nominal amount of sales tax to keep the trains running.

“The real issue for BART is that it’s a jury-rigged, baling-wire transit system where everything’s knotted together,” said Randy Rentschler, legislative director at the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

He views the agency’s fare enforcement quandary as an outcropping of a transportation network that was designed in the 1960s and doesn’t make sense now. Riders pay an extra $1.44 surcharge to get over the San Mateo County line, but county residents pay almost nothing to have BART serve their communities.

“What BART’s trying to do is important,” Rentschler said. “The question is how to do it in a way that’s fair.”

Some directors worry that uneven enforcement between counties will exacerbate racial disparities in the proof-of-payment program.

“I think this deserves an investigation,” said Board Director Lateefah Simon, whose district stretches from the city of Richmond to San Francisco’s Embarcadero. She voted against expanding the program on Thursday.

Though most of her colleagues support the proof-of-payment crackdown, several were blindsided when BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said Thursday that San Mateo County is off-limits.

“That’s not going to be acceptable at any level,” said Board Director John McPartland, whose district spans from Castro Valley to Dublin/Pleasanton.

He pointed out that if BART has no authority in San Mateo, “We’re going to have the same problem in San Jose in the near future.”

But it won’t be easy to redraw a transit district that’s been in place for half a century, particularly if it means enacting new taxes in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties and changing the structure of BART’s board.

There might be easier solutions, Josefowitz said. He suggested BART could press state legislation to give the transit agency authority over the counties it serves, or persuade San Mateo County to pass its own ordinance to follow BART’s rules.

Either way, Josefowitz said he would pursue whatever changes are necessary to make every rider pay up.